Students with tear-filled eyes and sorrowful glances walked through campus last Wednesday, the sixth anniversary of Sept. 11. The sounds of drums broke the silence as the candle fires flickered in the wind. Most students came to remember loved ones or simply recall that tragic day.
“Let’s take a moment as a community now to speak the names and hold them in a light,” said Max Carter, director of the Friends Center and campus ministry coordinator. Students gathered in front of Founders Hall for a moment of silence and a few opening words. They continued to stride slowly through campus trying desperately to keep the fires bright despite the breeze. It became a night filled with remembrance and hope for a better future.
“A number of people are here as a commitment to end violence, and find peace,” said Carter.
Most students were quiet but it was the fact that they came that mattered to Brittiany Green, a senior who has been helping run the ceremony for the past couple of years. “Apathy is a big problem in our society today,” said Green.
Several students like Green, who has four older brothers in the military, were there to remember family and friends who have died or are still fighting in the Iraq war.
“On Sept. the 11th, we resolved that we would go on the offense against our enemies,” said President George W. Bush in his address to the nation on Sept. 11, 2007. According to the Human Cost of Occupation, this war has since been responsible for the death of over 3,110 Americans and around 70,500 Iraqi citizens.
“On one level people still bear the scars of 9/11 and the day brings back the tears,” said Carter as he observed the students accumulating around him.
He also discussed the fact that people all over the world were affected by the “ripple effect” of Sept. 11. “We all, no matter what political or religious affiliation, are affected by the ripple effect of Sept. 11.”
Carter then turned the night into more of a positive experience and said that we must use that same ripple effect within our own community here at Guilford. “We must “create zones of peace around us, make Guilford a zone of peace and let it emanate out with that same ripple effect.”
Students hugged and comforted each other, shaking hands and representing, once again, Green’s observation that Sept. 11 “brought everyone together.”
Students then slowly trickled away, many towards the hut to listen to poetry. They left with feelings of hope. As first year Daniel Gilbert said, “as long as one person has hope, it can spread to everyone.”